In November 2021, a woman’s autoimmune issues flared up. Her doctor remains unsure whether rheumatoid arthritis or fibromyalgia was the cause, or if both conditions were acting together. The achiness and fatigue were clear signs that something was more active than usual.
She woke up tired, needed naps, and often ran out of spoons. That phrase, familiar to many with chronic conditions, comes from an essay called “The Spoon Theory” by Christine Miserandino. While the reason was unclear, one thing was certain: her body was demanding rest.
Knowing that rest was needed did not make it easy to do. She would sit down to watch a show and find herself trying to multitask. She would put off a nap like a stubborn toddler. Instead of throwing a tantrum, she tried to push through to finish typing an email or move laundry into the dryer. Even with a body and brain crying out for rest, it was hard to allow herself to do it. She had to reparent herself to enforce stopping times and rest periods.
People in the Western world, especially in the United States, are programmed to be productive. They are told what they should be doing to stay busy. Work in all forms, from job tasks to errands to chores, is what they are supposed to do. From a young age, they are conditioned to be productive and stay busy. They hear phrases like “I’ll rest when I’m dead” and “no rest for the weary.” They are urged to “pay their dues” and “put in the work.”
Even if people avoid direct messages about staying busy, they receive indirect messages by watching others. They watch parents come home from work with grocery bags, fix dinner while putting groceries away, or feel wrong if their answer to “what are you doing?” is “nothing.” After dinner, once everything is cleaned up, they watch parents do additional work, both paid and unpaid. They are told they have to work hard to succeed, that nothing good comes easy, and that they should not stop when tired but only when done.
Sitting down and resting is not prioritized. Those who decide to rest often must justify it, as if they have to earn the right to rest. Rest does not only mean sleep, although sleep is a large part of it. It also includes sitting comfortably doing not much of anything. It could mean listening to music, watching TV, meditating, working quietly on a jigsaw puzzle, reading a book, playing solitaire, looking out the window, or journaling.
In the fall, while struggling with an autoimmune flare, she realized she should rest more. She was so used to overriding her body’s signals that she did not realize how far she had pushed herself. When she checked how her mind and body truly felt, she was shocked to find they were almost buckling, on the edge of collapse. She waited to notice what was happening until she reached a point where she could not do many tasks in a day. A banner day during that time might have involved a single load of laundry or cooking dinner.
She was so fixated on staying busy that she could no longer honestly assess her need for busyness. She had lost the ability to tune into her body to find out if it needed to move and stretch, or to stretch out and sleep. If she had continued to push ahead much longer, she is certain she would have fallen ill. She was dealing with brain fog, fatigue, and joint and muscle pain, all of which made life unpleasant. When she hit the edge of collapse and burnout, she realized serious rest was in order.
She cleared her calendar for at least three weeks. She cleared her work calendar of appointments, scheduled brief blog posts and emails, and took time off. It was torture at first. Her husband was still getting up and heading out to teach classes, modeling proper work behavior. She discovered she was incapable of just resting. She had to relearn how to listen to her body to discover what it needed. She also had to reprogram her thoughts about rest as an inherent right, not a reward for productivity.
She did all the forms of rest, from naps to puzzles to sitting quietly. It was ridiculously difficult. She had to almost force herself to limit herself to single-tasking, doing one task at a time. That was especially hard if the task was mechanically simple, such as watching a television show. Her inner monologue would kick up, chastising her for just sitting there and urging her to be productive. In those moments, she sometimes sat on her hands to make sure she did not pick up her phone or a crossword puzzle. She often put her phone on silent and left it in another room to reduce temptation.
Even with taking steps to single-task, she did not always manage. But she learned through reinforcement that there was nothing likely to arise in an hour or two that required her to give up on resting and take immediate action. She realized she was retraining her nervous system to allow itself to relax. It was so used to being in a state of alertness that resting took some getting used to. When she started to budget rest into her days, she could start to tell more easily what signals her body was sending. It became easier to converse with her brain and body to find out how they were feeling and what they needed.
At any given moment, she can pause, tap into what she is feeling mentally and physically, and act on her own needs in ways that are more nurturing than before. When she realizes she is losing focus on a project, she no longer pushes through. Instead, thanks to months of practice, she pauses and checks in with her brain and body. She can quickly ascertain whether she needs a simple break, to get up and walk around, to take a walk outdoors, or to stop for the day. She is learning to embrace the idea that rest is an inherent right, not something that needs to be earned. It is no longer something that occurs only once she has pushed herself to the point of collapse. The more she leans into rest and builds it into her days, the more energy she has to accomplish all the things she wants to get done in life. When she adds time off or breaks during the day, she finds she has better focus when working on a task. When she includes rest in her days, she has the energy to exercise in the morning and also make a good meal for dinner.
